Patlabor is an older concept than most people
think. In the very early 1980's, Masami Yuuki would regularly have coffee with his
friend and fellow manga artist Tomato Aki to discuss the state of robot anime at that time. The most
popular series during that period was "Mobile
Suit Gundam", conceived by
Yoshiyuki Tomino. Tomino was notorious for killing off major characters and
having lots of angst in his anime (see "Aura Battler Dunbine" and "Space Runaway
Ideon" for the most extreme examples of this). Yuuki wanted to get away from
that style of robot anime completely. He and Aki wanted a story where robots
were used in everyday life, a more realistic story. A story where the characters
didn't have to die and teenagers full of angst didn't populate the story.

Below are three TV series concepts thought
up by Masami Yuuki and the people who later joined him to flesh out his idea
(whom most of became the core of Headgear), and show the development of what
would eventually become Patlabor. They provide a great insight of how Patlabor
might have turned out to be if things had gone a little differently.

Jeilazard
(circa 1981)

The first concept they came up with was "Jeilazard".
It told the story of an interstellar war and was set on a training ship. The
lead character was a girl, which wasn't the usual protagonist seen in an anime
of that time. In retrospect the plot outline sounds very similar to "Gunbuster
(Aim for the Top!)", Gainax's 1988
OVA (direct to video) series. The "Jeilazard" concept was not pitched to any
studios, nor was it fully developed.

Lightning
Garrakres (circa 1982)

The next concept is getting towards
Patlabor, but it's still set in space. The plot goes like this; sometime in the
future in the far reaches of the solar system, other worlds are being colonised,
and people are being drawn toward this new frontier. Unfortunately there is a
labour shortage. Luckily there are people who will take on any sort of
challenge. One of them is a girl called Aldy Rime of Rime Active Services, a
small company that takes on any job no matter how tough. She has a friend and
counsellor named Ban, who is the manager of a Casino. Other characters include a
mechanic named Derek and a cute girl named Alpina. There were a number of mecha
in the show, Garrakres, a giant robot (which looks a bit like Optimus Prime from "Transformers"),
Haigari, a space craft and Jackgari a land vehicle. The show was going to be a
light comedy.

The outline of the story sounds like a mix
of "Dirty
Pair" and "Crusher
Joe". Again this concept was not
pitched to any studio. Masami Yuuki ditched the concept completely when he
discovered that the name of the show sounded a bit too similar to Walker Gallia,
a robot in "Sento Mecha Xabungle", a robot show which debuted on Japanese TV in
1982.

A sketch of Aldy Rime
in a pilot suit, very reminiscent of the ones seen in "Mobile Suit Gundam", and
a rough sketch of Garrakres, the main robot of the show.

Sketches of the "Lighting Garrakres"
cast.

Vidor (circa 1982 - 1985)

The "Vidor" concept was pretty much
Patlabor set in space. Most the core concepts from this show would be later used
to develop Patlabor. "Vidor" takes place sometime in the future on a colonised
planet, where large humanoid robots called 'Labors' are used for heavy work.
However these Labors are being used by criminals to commit crime, and a new
Labor police division is formed to fight this crime. A young police woman named
Aldy Rime (a character recycled from "Lightning Garrakres") has just been
transferred to this new division in the POPS 110 Precent. The division uses a
robot called Vidor mainly for traffic control and to fight Labor crime. Other
team members include another young woman named Epiluna Micro. The Vidor Labor is
a controlled by two pilots; Aldy and Epiluna. The main duties of of the division
are traffic control which is a major problem on the planet. The tag line of the
show was going to be "Space is Jammed!".

There is also a shadowy organization
called Falcone Shaft, controlled by a middle aged megalomaniac named Charles
Michael von le Falcone. His subordinates include his calm and cool assistant
Shiriaru do Shiba, Shiba's subordinate Nick Jagger who is one nasty customer,
and Hermes who is a clever and dexterous criminal, and is named after the Greek
patron god of thieves. Hermes was going to be a Lupin III type of character.

Masami Yuuki said in an interview that
Aldy was much rougher than Noa Izumi, and more like Kei from "Dirty Pair" with
an appetite for mass destruction to boot. The uniform designs are very similar
to the final Patlabor designs (which are based off "Ultraseven" team member
costumes), but they seem to be a bit more influenced by "Mobile Suit Gundam",
especially with the footwear. Around 1985, Yuuki met up with Yutaka Izubuchi who
was working in the editorial department of Animec magazine. Izubuchi fell in
love with Yuuki's concept. Along with sci-fi novelist Kou Hiura, the small team
set about writing up a proposal for a 26 episode TV series. Also created at the
same time was a dummy proposal named "Galdeen". The main reason behind this was
that the studio that they wanted to pitch it to, Sunrise, said they they'd
rather hear two pitches for story ideas at a time.
However Sunrise unfortunately rejected
both project ideas.

From left right, Aldy
Rime, Epiluna Micro and very sketchy and a rough drawing of the main Labor
robot, Vidor.

From left to right we
have an unnamed child character (perhaps a young Aldy Rime), an unnamed
POPS 110 Precent team member, Hermes, and Charles Michael von le Falcone.

"Vidor" cast height
comparison model sheet. The team are modelled from Tsuburaya science
fiction shows such as "Ultraseven". This influence can also be seen in the
final Patlabor character designs.

Early Patlabor Concepts
(1985 - 1987)

At this point, the project languished somewhat as Yuuki focused on his manga
serial "Ultimate Superman R" which soon became a fan favourite. But soon Izubuchi met screenwriter Kazunori Ito. Ito
also liked the idea and began re-working "Vidor" into what was to become "Patlabor", and began to include more common
everyday elements to the sci-fi storyline. Eventually the show's setting became
near future Tokyo after a devastating earthquake. At the same time Ito's wife, Akemi
Takada, joined the small team re-working Yuuki's
character designs. In 1986, an acquaintance of Ito's at Bandai Visual noticed
the popularity of Yuuki's work and offered the small team a chance to make "Patlabor"
as an OVA as long as Yuuki produced a manga version as a tie in. With that
agreed to, it was decided to produce the OVA series as an actual production
company, so that Yuuki, Ito, Takada and Izubuchi owned the rights to the series.
The only problem was that they needed a director to complete the package.

From the beginning Mamoru Oshii was a candidate, but members of the
team were rather sceptical that he could work on a realistic sci-fi show because of his previous work. But eventually those
fears were quelled and in December 1986, Headgear signed an agreement to produce
a six part "Patlabor" OVA series.

The development of Noa Izumi by
Masami Yuuki. Some of these sketches date back as far as 1983, but oddly
look more like the Noa we see in Patlabor rather than Aldy Rime in Vidor.
After Vidor, the character was named Celia Saotome for a short time.

Character studies of
Celia Saotome
(early version of Noa Izumi) by Masami Yuuki.

Tomato Aki's version of the Patlabor cast
circa 1985. At this stage the characters that would eventually become Noa
and Kanuka seem to more or less set in stone,
but the others are still far off the final designs.

1985 character studies. By now we are
seeing Shinshi, Hiromi and Kanuka developing quite well, however Asuma
looks rather more handsome and dependable than his final design. Note that by
this early stage, the distinctive helmet that the Patlabor pilots wear is
more or less at its final design stage.

Another set of 1985 character
studies. As well as Noa and Shinshi we can see Ota and Shinobu developing.
Other characters remain totally unrecognisable when compared with the
final designs.

Character designs by Akemi Takada drawn in 1985. Noa, Asuma
and Shinobu are pretty much complete. But Kanuka
has gone through a couple of changes as you can see from an early head
shot, to the middle drawing where she has more distinct Asian features.
Also pictured here are two full length body drawings of Noa and Gotoh.

On the left is an early version of a
Patlabor, though you can see elements of the Ingram in the design. Also
pictured is very early image boards which are designed to show action
sequences.